Blizzard wants to cut out World of Warcraft overwork on their workers

[Donald Hellscream]

Ya it is kinda bullshit, and in general you get paid higher wages for doing less work lol. Even in Canada most companies have just begun giving 2 weeks vacation starting. I used to have 4 now I only have 1 and it sucks.

As a teacher I even get more time off than most since my work is obviously dependant on whether the kids are on holiday or not. Though I do spend a fair bit of my spare time doing stuff like lesson planning etc.

[cparle87]

Are you done with your ad hominem, or are you going to provide "constructive" posts, as you like to preach?

On topic: the less overtime, the better for workers. I just hope that this guy's words are true instead of mere PR bullcrap.

Still, OP provided an interesting read, kudos

There really can't be anything constructive in threads like these, when the haters come in to completely misrepresent what is actually said in the OP's article to suit their own agenda. Really the only constructive thing you can do is call them out on their crap.

[Wermys]

The issue is not really to do with content in the sense that they keep turning it over and its coming in steady. The issue is the content is just bad. They are stuck dealing with this idiotic system pretty much until the next expansion. Which they obviously are going to change how the game mechanics work. So its easy for them to get those workers time to take off now. I have no complaints about the updates and schedules they have used in the past couple of years. And they do deserve to take off whenever they can. Now if they only would fix how the game works gameplay wise.

[Yunru]

Back in the old days they used to work themselves nearly to death and the game was good!

Back in the day they had passion. Now they are just a large corperation. Guess what happened when they left: Wildstar

There is nothing wrong with overwork, but you shouldnt do it to much.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl...hronic-fatigue

Or....
You may get visited by a god:
(insert image from Senko dealing with a workaholic -- from kitsune no senko san anime/manga)
Only anime fans will get this joke.

[Velshin]

Game companies need to realize that they first need to make a good game, then if it is good enough, the money will follow. They are starting out from the viewpoint to make money, which will not yield good results. It's important to understand that they are there to make money, but that approach isn't the same one the original developers of WoW had when the conceptualized the game. They just wanted to make a game that they would enjoy themselves.

Thank you so much! yes indeed the game will be successful when the main goal is = making a good game and enjoyable

The moment the company lose = the moment they focus on making money instead of making good quality game

Pretty simple tbh I don't get why so many people or companies don't get it... I guess greed is a famous trait of humans after all.

[Voidwielder]

Blizzard workers need to work smarter, not harder.

This.

The cult of ''work hard'' needs to die in a fire. I have had to work 90, 100 hour weeks and by the end of it my productivity was near zero. Maybe someone more resilient can make it last. But not for long.

Good workers work smart. Good management creates conditions in which that is possible.

[Topornic]

Seeing Blizzard's quality of work I dare to say that anything they are crunching it must be crunching snacks or pile of crappy ideas chips

[Voidwielder]

companies aren't legally required to give any vacation days.

That is so fucked up.

[styil]

This.

The cult of ''work hard'' needs to die in a fire. I have had to work 90, 100 hour weeks and by the end of it my productivity was near zero. Maybe someone more resilient can make it last. But not for long.

Good workers work smart. Good management creates conditions in which that is possible.

Unfortunately, working 'smart' is seen as working 'lazy', and is not rewarded in society. So people work 'hard' instead. I'm not sure if society is capable of change.

[Th3Scourge]

It's like people don't read the article.
There is less long night works now than it was 10 years ago.

It's like people can't read posts.

I said "if"

...

[SirCowdog]

"The WOW team ships a major paid expansion, equivalent to a new game release.."

I almost stopped reading here. Are you kidding me? Each expansion isn't a new game. Expansions like WoD and BfA are hardly even adding anything new, and in some respects actually REMOVE things.

This entire article and series of quotes just comes across as a PR stunt, trying to take advantage of the controversial hot topic in the industry right now. While simultaneously trying to explain their blatant content gating to boost MAUs and subscriptions.

Does anyone actually believe this line of bullshit? I genuinely feel bad for passionate game developers on the line, but I have no sympathy for spins like this. Companies like Blizzard need to just stop being such soulless bastards at the leadership level.

[wushootaki]

WoW had new systems, new ways to play for years after release and it made the game grow to heights no MMO or game had ever seen at the time. Keeping true to the core while at the same time adding new features that don't gate, frustrate or ruin player experiences is absolutely possible and they did it in the past.

All their new ideas are now is RNG.

- - - Updated - - -



Don't be that way. You know it for a fact and you know players dislike them. Go look at google trends for WoW if you want an interest comparison in WoW. Those features are lacking extremely and It sucks because I was excited for two of them.

You're just in denial man. I don't know anyone who could honest to god like Azerite without just saying it to be an opposing opinion. What does Azerite do that adds enjoyment?

Let's not kid ourselves. MMOs yes. All games? No. Definitely not.

[Corroc]

I think what grinds my gears the most is Activision Blizzard boasted about record profits then fired 800 people between both Activision and Blizzards studios.

I have replied to you in other thread and I will do it again. They did not have record profits. Stop spreading your bullshit.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

"The WOW team ships a major paid expansion, equivalent to a new game release.."

I almost stopped reading here. Are you kidding me? Each expansion isn't a new game. Expansions like WoD and BfA are hardly even adding anything new, and in some respects actually REMOVE things.

Bfa has added a ton of new stuff Between islands warfronts 6 questing zones a metric ton of new art ect. Bfa is Proabbly in the top 3 for biggest expans.

[SirCowdog]

Bfa has added a ton of new stuff Between islands warfronts 6 questing zones a metric ton of new art ect. Bfa is Proabbly in the top 3 for biggest expans.

Don't make me laugh! Islands and Warfronts are bloat. Filler bullshit that stopped being interesting after the second time you see it. Warfronts are so divested of content or depth Blizzard had to limit them to twice a month!


BfA might appear to be large on the surface, but none of it has depth. To claim that it equates to a new game is exceptionally ignorant or disingenuous.

[Jastall]

I heard that its not guaranteed in USA to get 21/26 days of holiday at work, is it true ?

It is not, and in most places in North America companies aren't even legally required to provide vacation days or even off/sick days if memory serves. Actual holidays are the only breaks mandated by the law, and even then only just, I'm Canadian but still work on the 24th of December for example.

Yeah, NA is wayyy behind most of Europe in this regard.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Don't make me laugh! Islands and Warfronts are bloat. Fillwr bullshit that stopped being interesting after the second time you see it.


BfA might appear to be large on the surface, but none of it has depth. To claim that it equates to a new game is exceptionally ignorant or disingenuous.

You not liking them doesn’t magically give back the dev time of making new art new land masses new mobs new ability’s new code ect ect. Bfa has a ton of work in it just because you don’t like the end result doesn’t take that work out.

[Jastall]

"The WOW team ships a major paid expansion, equivalent to a new game release.."

I almost stopped reading here. Are you kidding me? Each expansion isn't a new game. Expansions like WoD and BfA are hardly even adding anything new, and in some respects actually REMOVE things.

This entire article and series of quotes just comes across as a PR stunt, trying to take advantage of the controversial hot topic in the industry right now. While simultaneously trying to explain their blatant content gating to boost MAUs and subscriptions.

Does anyone actually believe this line of bullshit? I genuinely feel bad for passionate game developers on the line, but I have no sympathy for spins like this. Companies like Blizzard need to just stop being such soulless bastards at the leadership level.

I mean, what you said had nothing to do with how much work they put in. They made three separate CGI cinematics costing millions each, six detailed zones, two different faction-specific stories, more cutscenes than any expansion before, a host of new features (these islands don't make themselves no matter how boring they end up being), new gameplay elements (no Azerite isn't perfect at all, but it still exists), a bunch of new playable races, so on and so forth.

I'm not saying the result is great, mind you, but as I said earlier that does not mean no effort was put in the game. Is there as much stuff as in a Witcher 3 for example? Not at all, but expansions also retail for less than full games, and unlike the vast majority of games WoW gets big, regularly scheduled content updates over the course of an expansion's two years (paid for by subs, sure, but still). You can not like the design as much as you want, but that's not really part of the conversation on how many man-hours were put on the product.

One could easily argue that BfA doesn't put the effort at the right place, and I'd be very receptive to the idea myself. Warfronts should have been scrapped entirely and the man-hours spent on either more story quests or improving Islands, depending on what devs are freed up this way. Class design should have been given a higher priority as well. But "time not spent in the right place" isn't the same as "time that is non-existent" when we're talking in the context of how many hours/week Blizzard's employees work. You don't get more or less overworked if you're crafting the best or worst feature ever.

[hulkgor]

Makes you wonder to think why the recent wow expansions were bad. A overwork and burnout.

"bad"? Legion? BFA?

wow.

[FelPlague]

You're just in denial man. I don't know anyone who could honest to god like Azerite without just saying it to be an opposing opinion. What does Azerite do that adds enjoyment?

Azerite traits are like teir sets however far more of them, and far more options, there is 6 of them per spec, which is equal to three raid teirs, plus there is a fair few that are not teir based, more like trinket procs, azerite also allows you to choose many more options, instead of "oh hey here is my set i am gunna take it"

Azerite gear is literally teir gear 2.0 overall better, but its only annoyance was having to level them and not swapping with spec.
which the level them is fixed in 8.2 or now if you have done any content
and swapping with spec was not a thing for teir gear for quite awhile.